Tag: 10 things

march 14/RUN

4.2 miles
minnehaha falls and back
63! degrees

Last night, I read this on Instagram from a local weather blog: Thursday feels like spring, Friday like summer, and snow on Saturday. What? Reading more, the snow should be north of us. Instead, we’ll get thunderstorms. That’s March (and April, and sometimes May) in Minnesota. This morning does feel like summer: warm. I wore shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and a light-weight sweatshirt. Halfway, the sweatshirt came off. The falls were gushing. I think I overheard some woman exclaim, How can there still be ice?! I didn’t look closely, but I imagine the one ice column beside the falling water is lingering.

Mostly I felt fine while I ran. My back didn’t hurt. Both of my hips are a little sore, but not like they’re injured sore. Almost like I’ve been doing too many core/hip exercises sore.

Listened to the birds and bikers and kids on the playground as I ran south. Put in my “Doin’ Time” playlist at the falls and as I ran north.

Playing for Time/ Peter Gabriel
What Time is It?/ Spin Doctors
Time of the Season/ Zombies

10 Things

  1. shadow 1: mine, beside me
  2. shadow 2: fence slats on the trail
  3. shadow 3: a flying bird
  4. a kid at the falls wearing a bright blue jacket with a logo on it that reminded me of a jacket I got from a race a few years ago. Did he run the race too?
  5. my favorite bench above the edge of the world was occupied by a person and a bike
  6. matching bright yellow shirts on 2 bikers biking up the hill between the double bridge and locks and dam no. 1
  7. running under the ford bridge, appreciating the cool, shaded air
  8. the river sparkling silver through the trees as I ran south, below the road
  9. the dirt trail on the boulevard, mostly mud
  10. stopped at the folwell bench to admire the river — all I remember is that it was open and blue

After I finished, I recited the Emily Dickinson poem I memorized yesterday: Crumbing is not an Instant’s Act. I remembered almost all of it, only struggling with this verse:

Ruin if formal — Devil’s work
????? and slow —
Failing in an instant, no man did
Falling Slipping — is Crashe’s law —

I couldn’t think if the right word for the second line. Sequenced? Ordered? Organized? No. It’s “Consecutive.” Of course!

I’ve liked this poem for a few years now, especially the second verse and “An Elemental Rust.” I decided to memorize it as I study time and think about its relationship to erosion (and to my vision).

lunar eclipse

Woke up around 1:30 and realized that there was a lunar eclipse. Got RJP (who was still up, natch) and we sat outside and watched it slowly happen. Well. at least 15 minutes of it. We didn’t have the patience to wait until it was completely covered. RJP and I always check out sunsets and the moon together. It’s one of our things. I am reminds me of a story I read years ago. Can I find it? Yes, but it took a long time. I had a title — October — but not the author or the journal. Lots of searching online and in my files and through my books. Nothing. More than an hour later sitting on the deck, the name Jill popped into my head. How? Why? I searched for “Jill essay October” and found it, except that wasn’t the right essay. This one was about her ex-husband and Texas and leaves; the one I remember was about her daughter and Texas and rain — but it had leaves (or leavings) in the title! Searched, “Jill essay daughter” and bingo! It’s funny how memory works.

Late last night, a surprise rain. My seventeen-year-old daughter and I rushed out to the deluge in bare feet, our T-shirts darkening with each drop. We raised our arms, spinning on the walkway and laughing until lightning seared the sky. I pointed to the tree’s thick arms, thinking about the way they stretch as if waving. We huddled under the light on the porch while rivers swelled against the curbs of the parking lot. When I told her we’ve been running into the rain since she was little, she grinned and nodded, her long blonde hair matted on her shoulders and against her neck.

*

It was there in Utah, when Indie was two and three and four, that I started the tradition: as soon as we hear rain, we throw open the door. During those first rains, I carried her. She was too young to know my sorrow, the way I waited for word from her father, the way I worried about my bank account every month. But when the rain came, all want and worry washed away. And then in the later rains, she beat me to the middle of the yard or the sidewalk or the walkway.

All Our Leavings/ Jill Talbot

march 13/WALK

35 minutes
neighborhood
55 degrees

Another spring-like day! Sun and so many birds. Cardinals and black capped chickadees and an irritating sparrow sounding almost like a squirrel just above us on a branch. Only the smallest lumps of snow from last week’s storm remain. Will I get more this month? Most likely. For now: bare grass and clear sidewalks!

Scott pointed out an orange cat across the street, strutting on the sidewalk, which led to a discussion of a difference between cats and dogs in terms of how they interact with you — dogs need you, cats don’t (or pretend they don’t). I’m a dog person, but I understand the appeal of the cat, especially when they strut down the sidewalk like they own it. I like that cats are fine leaving you alone and being left alone. Here was Scott’s summary of the difference: a dog is like your kid, a cat is like your roommate.

10 Non-Cat Things

  1. bright, blue sky
  2. a breeze only felt when walking in one direction — which? I think east
  3. the trash can at Minnehaha Academy which had been almost covered in snow was clear today
  4. nearing edmund and the river, I admired the soft golden tree line of the east bank
  5. that irritating squirrel-like sparrow: a light — white? or light gray — body with a dark head. Scott said he could see its throat swelling as it sang (I couldn’t)
  6. the saddest bark from a dog: a whine into a holler
  7. accidentally snapping a twig with my foot and having a sharp part of it scratch my ankle — ouch!
  8. a garland with lights wrapped around steps leading up to a fancy house on edmund
  9. other christmas decorations — 2 fake fir trees with lights — on another house — this is the house that also has a round head stuck on a lamp post. During Halloween it’s a pumpkin, then at Christmas a snowman, after that Mickey Mouse
  10. a colorful door — seeing it on other walks, I’m pretty sure it’s bright YELLOW!, but in the light and with my cone cells, it only looked, yellow?

notes from my Plague Notebook, Vol. 24

a blind spot = a gap/gash/silence in my vision = the Nothingness of the gorge

Crumbling is not an Instant’s Act/ ED

slow steady abrupt sudden
the strangeness of deterioration

shifting slipping spreading closing in narrowing

(thinking about Ellis and the Stutter as vessel) what does this openness/gorge hold?

a gap, gash, crack, weathering

rod cells on either side (rock) holding in the nothingness

void absent center

generous/big enough to hold all

unseen unstable shifting

circle cycle loop orbit around circumference (ED)
repeats, soft edges, curves, round

A song on my “Doin’ Time” playlist: Circle Game/ Joni Mitchell:

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

orbiting

Right now, I thinking/writing about a lot of different reoccurring themes: color, time, vision, erosion, the gorge, rituals and ceremonies. It can be overwhelming and feel like I’m doing nothing even as I do too much. Instead of worrying about this, I’ve decided to understand it as orbiting around something that I can’t quite reach. Somewhere in all of my wandering and reflecting and writing is the way into a poem-as-ceremony-as-poem that celebrates (or praises or embraces) my vision. Can I find it? I’ll try!

march 10/WALKRUN

walk: 60 minutes
winchell trail
57 degrees

A slow walk with Delia the dog. Stopping and sniffing and pooping and peeing and listening nervously to rumbling trucks and roofers. On the Winchell Trail, a black capped chickadee just overhead feebeed and chickadeedeedeed at us. Only a few remnants of the snow remain. A mix of dry path with puddles and mud.

Near the end of the walk I decided that what I really needed to do with my back was loosen it up by walking faster. Maybe I’m tensing up too much? Also decided that I’d try a short run.

run: 2 miles
just north of lake street
59 degrees

Ran past the ancient boulder and down through the tunnel of trees. The floodplain forest looks barren — no snow or leaves on the trees, only brittle and brown on the ground. Felt pretty relaxed and a little awkward — not quite a hitch in my step, but not smooth either. That got better as I warmed up. Listened to the breeze passing through the trees, and voices running north. I put in my “Doin’ Time” playlist for my run south. Heard: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is; A Summer Wasting; Suspended in Time. All three offering visions of life outside the clock/capitalist time.

I almost forgot: I wore shorts today!

10 Things from my Walk and Run

  1. park workers in orange vests getting ready to do some work — trim trees? clear out brush? (walk)
  2. after weeks, they’re finally doing something about the gushing water on the corner of 46th! the barricades were gone, and so was the sound of water gone wild (run)
  3. chick a dee dee dee — a black capped chickadee in a tree just above my head — what I saw: a small dark flurry of movement on a branch (walk)
  4. the soft, energetic din of kids on the playground at Dowling Elementary (walk)
  5. a line of snow — a lump, not big enough to be a wall — stretched across the walking path (run)
  6. the river: open, shimmering, blue (walk)
  7. the tree line on the other side, a golden glow (run)
  8. a slight slip in mud on the boulevard between edmund and the river road (walk)
  9. the soft shadows of gnarled oak tree branches on the grass (run)
  10. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder (run)

circumambulation

Returning to circumambulation and the ceremony/ritual of looping around the gorge. A thought: when I swim at the lake I do multiple loops, but beside the gorge, I only do one loop. What’s the difference (mentally, spiritually, physically) between a loop vs. multiple loops. Also, where do my there and back runs — trestle turn around or the franklin hill and back or the falls and back — fit in? What sort of ritual are they?

Loosely, the structure of Gary Snyder’s “The Circumambulation of Mt. Tamalpais” is:

  • a brief description of place
  • a sacred chant/mantra
  • a further description — more details, directions, feelings/reflections/encounters

I’ll try this structure. I think I want to do the 8 loop that combines the ford and franklin loops. But, I’m taking it easy with the running right now, so maybe I should wait to do this until next month?

but now we really hear chanting
we can’t decode–Don’t
be so rational–a congregate speech
from the redtrembling sprigs, a
vascular language prior to our

breathed language, corporeal, chemical,
drawing our sound into its harmonic, tuning
us to what we’ve yet seen, the surround
calling us, theory-less, toward an inference
of horizontal connections there at

ground level
(Circumambulation of Mt. Tamalpais/Forrest Gander)

Some chants I might include:

I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible

All trees are just trees

In every part of every living thing/is stuff that once was rock

Listen, I don’t think we’re going to rise/in gauze and halos./Maybe as grass, and slowly. Maybe as the long-leaved, beautiful grass (added the next day: these lines don’t fit with the others, not enough rhythm?)

Life is but Life, and Death is but Death. Joy is but Joy, and Breath is but Breath.

In the name of the Bee-–
And of the Butterfly-–
And of the Breeze–Amen!


march 3/RUN

3.3 miles
2 trails+
51 degrees

51 degrees! Sun! Less layers — instead of 2 pairs of tights only 1 with shorts, no jacket or gloves or hat covering my ears. Before I started, as I walked towards the river, the birds were noisy. I imagined them calling out, spring spring spring. Since it was so nice, I decided to run on the winchell trail on the way back. The first part of the trail was all mud. Remembering how I fell last week, I carefully walked today. The rest of the path was dry.

I chanted in triple berries — strawberry/blueberry/raspberry

10 Things

  1. the soft knocking of at least 1 woodpecker
  2. 2 people on the edge of the trail, looking out at the river
  3. 2 big black forms coming out of the Winchell Trail — turkeys? No, 2 humans
  4. a brief glimpse of my shadow off to the side, looking strong, straight
  5. a view of the river — pale blue with silver, snowy edges
  6. thick, wet mud — brown, uneven
  7. a small black something on the side of the path — a hat? a bag? a bag.
  8. voices above me — one high, one low
  9. 2 people standing by the fence near the 38th street steps looking out at the river
  10. 2 walkers bundled up — winter coats zipped, stocking caps, gloves

This morning, I made an appointment to be evaluated for a vision study at the U of M. They’re developing virtual reading glasses that can move words out of a person’s blind spot. Will I qualify? Is my central vision too bad, my blind spot too big? Or, is it not big enough? Whatever happens, part of the evaluation is a vision assessment, which I’m hoping will give me more information about the status of my central vision. Talking with the scheduler, I recall her saying, there are no cures for many of the central vision diseases so we’re focusing on developing helpful tools instead. I like that approach.

My motivations for signing up for this study are (in order of importance):

free eye exam — free, as opposed to $500-$`1000 exam
connecting with people working on vision loss
curiosity about new technologies

It’s great that these selfish motivations could also lead to the development of a tool for enabling people to read with their eyes (as opposed to with their ears).

I’d like for reading to be easier, but I’m adjusting to and enjoying audio books, so I’m not devastated by this aspect of my vision loss.

I just came across this old Twilight Zone episode — I had saved it in my reading list. It seems fitting to add it to this conversation about reading and vision, as an example of how fully sighted people imagine vision loss as a nightmare.

march 2/RUN

5 miles
bottom of franklin hill
26 degrees

Hooray for being outside and on the walking trail! Hooray for not much wind! Hooray for running up the Franklin hill! My back was a little tight, but not too bad. My legs felt fine.

The river was open; the only ice was on the edges. The sky was a mix of clouds and bright sun. Before the run I heard some geese — did I hear any during? I don’t think so. Also heard before the run: some kids having fun inside a house — laughing and yelling through the closed windows.

At some point, I had an idea for my monthly challenge: the run as ceremony. Inspired by Ellis’s Aster of Ceremonies, I want to return to Gary Snyder, Mount Tamalpais, and circumambulation. What sort of ceremonies can I make out of my run that brings together my blind spot and the gorge?

10 Things

  1. bright pink graffiti on a foot of the 1-94 bridge
  2. the top of one section of the wooden fence on the edge above Longfellow Flats is missing
  3. the chain across the old stone steps has been removed
  4. the path was almost completely clear — the only bit of snow I recall seeing was under the lake street bridge: a low and narrow ridge — just remembered one other bit of snow: just past the franklin bridge
  5. a full-length mirror left by the trashcan
  6. disembodied voices — coming from inside houses, below in the gorge, far behind me on the trail
  7. sh sh sh — my feet striking the grit on the asphalt
  8. my shadow briefly appeared – not sharp but soft, faint
  9. at least 2 trios of runners, some pairs, several runners on their own
  10. my friend, the limestone slabs propped up and looking like a person sitting against the underside of Franklin, is still there. I’d like to name them and add them to my list of regulars: Lenny the limestone?

lower back pain

My lower back has been sore lately. Sore enough that I took 5 days off of running. Not sure why I’ve waiting this long, but i decided today to look up lower back stretches for runners. I found this video and its 4 helpful stretches — the video claims to have 5 stretches, but they are only 4. I wonder what the missing one was?

The stretches: pretzel, thread the needle, plank to lunge, hip sweep

I’ll see how it feels in a few hours, but right now, having just stretched, it feels good!

a purple spill from march 1

I wrote this yesterday, but didn’t have a chance to post it.

It’s March and the purple hour is over, but in true purple fashion, the color can’t be contained to one month. Always it oversteps its boundaries. Reading the poem of the day, “Fog” by Emma Lazarus, purple appeared:

Swift, snowy-breasted sandbirds twittering glance 
Through crystal air. On the horizon’s marge, 
                Like a huge purple wraith, 
                The dusky fog retreats.

wraith

1
a: the exact likeness of a living person seen usually just before death as an apparition

b: GHOST, SPECTER

2

: an insubstantial form or semblance : SHADOW

3

: a barely visible gaseous or vaporous column

f you see your own double, you’re in trouble, at least if you believe old superstitions. The belief that a ghostly twin’s appearance portends death is one common to many cultures. In German folklore, such an apparition is called a Doppelgänger (literally, “double goer”); in Scottish lore, they are wraiths. The exact origin of the word wraith is misty, however, and etymologists can only trace it back to the early 16th century—in particular to a 1513 translation of Virgil’s Aeneid by Gavin Douglas (the Scotsman used wraith to name apparitions of both the dead and the living). In current English, wraith has taken on additional, less spooky, meanings; it now often suggests a shadowy—but not necessarily scary—lack of substance.

Merriam-Webster entry

marge = margin = edge

Wraith — I like that word and what it conjures. And to make it purple? Good job, Emma! I’m not sure about the middle section where she imagines the “orient town,” but I like “Fog,” especially this:

for on the rim of the globed world 
I seem to stand and stare at nothingness. 
                But songs of unseen birds 
                And tranquil roll of waves

Bring sweet assurance of continuous life 
Beyond this silvery cloud. Fantastic dreams, 
                Of tissue subtler still 
                Than the wreathed fog, arise,

And cheat my brain with airy vanishings 
And mystic glories of the world beyond. 

Returning to the purple — I like how she imagines the lifting fog as purple. Back in November of 2022 (how has it been that long?!) when I studied gray, I devoted a day to fog and mist: 23 nov 2022. Last month, purple — especially lavender and lilac or eggplant and dark purple — replaced gray. Where I used to see gray everywhere, now I see purple, or imagine purple.

feb 25/WALK (x2)

25 minutes
neighborhood
37 degrees
morning

Sun and no wind and barely any snow + chirping birds + barely iced puddles + mud and grit = the feeling of spring. I’m excited for warmer weather, although I’m also disappointed we didn’t get more snow. I suppose we still have March and April for that.

Walked with Scott and Delia. Scott and I talked a little about the U.S. and politics and how getting outside makes it a little (just enough) easier to endure all of this terribleness.

10 Things

  1. a black standard poodle stopped in the road, its human patiently waiting for it to move
  2. boulevards that are more mud than grass
  3. a thin, almost invisible sheen of ice on the shaded side of the sidewalk
  4. noticed for the first time, even though we’ve walked past them dozens of times: a kid’s footprints embedded in a stretch of old sidewalk
  5. chirp chirp
  6. the warm sun on my face
  7. near the end of the block: someone repairing or adding to a front porch
  8. heading south: a cool breeze
  9. blue sky
  10. the alley: mud, grit, puddles, ice

70 minutes
to the library and back
45 degrees
afternoon

Another chance to be outside! A wonderful afternoon for a walk. Sun, no wind, clear paths. Books to pick up at the library: Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color and Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries. Noticed a dark bluish purple fence that clashed with a dark blue house and a house painted plum.

the purple hour

I did wake up a few times last night, but I didn’t take any notes about it. This morning, I’m finishing the violet chapter in On Color.

What color are the haystacks really? What color is the cathedral at Rouen? Monet’s answer is that the haystacks and cathedral are the color (or colors) they seem to be at the moment of looking (147).

“ocular realism” = a commitment to the illusionistic rendering, not of the world, but of visual experience (147).

1:30 pm / neighborhood walk

As I walked to the library and then back from it, I tried to think about violet and purple and images the evoke my feelings of restlessness and uncertainty and not-quite-formed. A hummingbird, mid-air — moving too fast to see the motion, or a spinning top, constantly whirring but looking solid and still. Carbonated water, something fizzy and bubbling — small little bouncing balls or shimmering bubbles. An insistent, soft whisper. Soft, unstable.

feb 22/RUN

3.1 miles
ford bridge and back
23 degrees

Feels like spring today! Birds! Warm sun! Melting and dripping snow! It is supposed to warm up all next week. The path wasn’t that crowded, which is surprising because it’s so nice and it’s Saturday. I don’t remember much from my run, other than wondering if my back was hurting (occasionally, a little) or if I should stop to tie my shoelace (I did). Can I remember 10 things?

10 Things

  1. 3 or 4 fat bikes on the dirt rail that is on the other side of the river road and runs alongside Minnehaha Academy, lower campus and Becketwood
  2. a biker and a bike stopped at the bench across from Folwell
  3. the rounded shadow of the light part of a lamp post
  4. a thick layer of snow on the walking path between folwell and 42nd
  5. three runners ahead of me evenly spaced across the whole path
  6. my dark shadow ahead of me as I ran north
  7. the clanging of an unseen dog collar
  8. a walker talking loudly on her phone as she walked, her voice echoing through the neighborhood and then above the oak savanna
  9. a runner in a bright blue jacket turning onto the trail from 42nd
  10. the river, all white, all covered in snow

I listened to voices as I ran south, the mood: energy playlist on the way back north.

the purple hour

1:35 am / dining room

Listened to Monica Ong’s “Lavender Insomnia.“

7:55 am / dining room

The poem of the day on Poetry Foundation is First Fig. Figs can be many different colors but are often associated with purple. Since I’ve posted this well-known poem about a candle burning at both ends before, I decided to find out if Millay had written any other fig poems.

Second Fig/ Edna St. Vincent Millay

SAFE upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
  Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

First Fig and Second Fig are from Millay’s 1922 collection, A Few Figs from Thistles. Is her use of figs and thistles a reference to Matthew in the Bible?

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

Matthew 7:16-20 King James Version (KJV)

Speaking of thistles, my mom often had globe thistles in her garden. After she died, I recall wanting to grow them in her memory, but I can’t remember why. Is it because butterflies like their round purple flowers, or because I do?

feb 14/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
18 degrees / feels like 6

The bike path was clear and not crowded. The air was cold. I heard a few birds, kids on the playground, dry leaves still on the trees imitating the waterfall. My legs felt heavy, my lower back a little sore. Waved a greeting to almost everyone I encountered. Thought maybe I heard some kids on the sledding hill at minnehaha park but couldn’t see anyone.

About a mile in, I started thinking about how purple represents both very hot temperatures and very cold ones. Purple = extreme. Then I thought about Basho’s line about poetry as “a fireplace in summer, a fan in winter.”

small victories: thought about stopping to walk under the ford bridge but kept going until I reached my favorite observation spot, stopped to put in a playlist, then kept running until I reached the double bridge. also: have mostly reached my winter goal of lowering my average heart run to under 160 — today it was 157.

10 Things

  1. cloud-covered sun
  2. yellowed leaves on an otherwise bare tree — a compliment to the violet air
  3. the river was covered in white and looked wider and colder than usual
  4. at least 10 people were standing near my favorite observation spot by the falls
  5. through the slats of the double bridge on the walking side I noticed bright blue graffiti
  6. one car was parked in the far parking lot at the top of the sledding hill
  7. the bright pink plastic bag I mentioned last week was further in the woods today — was it filled with snow?
  8. the falls were frozen and not falling
  9. stopped at the bench above the edge of the world: open, empty, a few tracks in the snow
  10. a small part of the fence near 38th is missing a panel

the purple hour — 2 days

3:18 am (bedroom floor) / 13 jan 2025

Still life painting
Heavy shadows and light

Sitting in the dark, wanting to keep the quiet and how I’ve adjusted to the dark, I’m reluctant to take out my iPad and write or to speak into my phone. Now, later (10:00 am) in the morning, I remember the moon (a full moon!) coming through the slats — not as dramatically as the past few nights — and the window-sized square of light with its soft slat shadows and the deep, solid shadow of the couch and the dark almost emptiness of the closet — almost empty because I could see the hint (inkling?) of the exercise ball with the slightest outline of light. The image of the ball just barely emerging from the shadow reminded me of a still life painting — the one that Diane Seuss writes about in Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber/ Diane Seuss (see 3 may 2024).

At night, when others are asleep and it’s more dark than light, the world stills for my restless eyes. The static stops. Finally objects freeze. Mostly I do too. A chance to look for longer, to stare and study.

I like “seeing” the darkness in the closet — its accordion doors wide open — as a deep purple. It’s not pure black; there’s color there but it’s dark and deep.

Writing this last sentence prompted me to search for Monet and purple. Why? I can’t remember now, a few minutes later. Jackpot. First, a quotation wrongly attributed to Claude Monet on the search, but actually spoken by Manet — poor Manet. How often is he overshadowed by Monet? Anyway, here’s the quotation:

I have finally discovered the true colour of the atmosphere. It’s violet. Fresh air is violet. I found it! Three years from now everyone will do violet!

found in The Secret Lives of Color, which sites Bright Earth: The Invention of Color, 208.

Bright Earth? This books looks great. Just requested it from my local library!

The impressionists were enamored with violet. Critics claimed they were afflicted with violettomania. Some theories on why:

  • a belief that shadows were never merely black or gray but colored — this sounds familiar!
  • complementary colors: bright yellow and soft purple. Robin Wall Kimmerer and Goldenrods and Asters!
  • vision problems — Monet and cataracts

*

Talking with my sister on the phone in the afternoon about my purple hour, she mentioned a paint color made from human remains. I think she meant this one:

Caput mortuum, Latin for “dead head,” is a dark brown paint that looks violet in some lights, maroon in others. It is earthy and intense, and like many browns, it can run in opposite chromatic directions when diluted. Some versions of caput mortuum paint tend toward the yellow end of the spectrum, while others wash into a light, yet slightly murky lavender. Despite its foreboding name and strange history, it is a rather simple, homey color. The substance reached the height of its popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries. It gets its hue from pulverized, mummified bodies (both human and feline) and its name from alchemy.

source

2:06 am / dining room / 14 feb

That moon! noticed a thin line of light on the kitchen floor then went over to the side (south facing) window and noticed the moon through the thick wooden slats. wow!
sitting at the dining room table, the heat kicked in — creaking everywhere through the vents. I have a short, repeated passage from one of our community band pieces running through my head. looking off to the side I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, my face-blob glowing from the computer screen — wistful wisteria — all parts of wisteria are toxic to humans — small purple flowers

I’m not sure why the phrase “wistful wisteria” popped into my head. Where do I know wisteria from? Searched for poetry wisteria and found a poem by Lucie Brock-Broido, Extreme Wisteria

Wisteria is, first: a hardy, deciduous, capable-of-earnest-grasping shrub which bears small flowers. After that, it can be pressed (violently if you will) into an attar of its former self. In this poem, wisteria is also a state (of mind), the place one heads toward when feeling wistful.”

QA with Lucie Brock-Broido

7:53 am / dining room / 14 feb

  • aubergine, agitated, almost/approximate
  • bathos, bruised
  • cancer: pancreatic, cough medication
  • Dino or Daphne, deep
  • eggplant, emperor, Easter dress
  • fibs faint falsehoods, fake fruit flavor, FWA’s favorite color
  • Grape Ape, grief, (ornamental) grass
  • heliotrope, haze, heaviness, hair color?!
  • iris, ink, iffy, iodine
  • jealousy, jazz, jackets
  • kingly, Kristen’s post-college car
  • lilac, lavender, Lumpy Space Princess
  • mauve, magenta, mold, mystery, magic
  • non (binary/entity/sense)
  • orchid, outrage(ous)
  • pansy, petunia, plum (fruit and Professor)
  • queer, question
  • restless, rusty/rusted
  • shadows, slant, snail-snot, scar
  • Tyranian, tantrums, teletubby, toe
  • unfenced, undulating, underwater, unique, uncertain, undecided
  • violet, violence, vapor
  • wisteria, wispy, whelk, wood with soft inhabitants, wet, wild
  • eXcessive, exasperated, extremities — oxygen-starved, excess
  • yellow’s compliment, yelling
  • zeal

10:30 / front room, my desk / 14 feb

Wandering with purple: Part of this purple hour project, part of any of my projects really, is to find reasons to wander and wonder about new, unexpected things that I might not otherwise encounter or care about. Mission accomplished! It started last night with a random phrase that whispered to me, wistful wisteria. This led to reading about the purple-flowered vine, wisteria, then Lucie Brock-Broido’s poem, then her Q&A about the poem in which they discuss Emily Dickinson, especially her poem, “Essential Oils — are wrung –“. Then the idea of ED as a hard nut to crack. Then this line from some commentary on ED:

When I read Walt Whitman, we jauntily walk side by side down the road within his multitudinous world of wonder. When I read Dickinson, I don’t know if I am inside her mind or if she is inside mine. But I am always in a mysterious, perplexing, deeply thought-provoking, sometimes scary but always beautiful place.

source

Which led me back to the Q&A:

I think we’re all in conversation on the page with that which came before us, or even during us. We inherit whatever canon we’re in the midst of, a great collective influenza.

*

What I mean to say is that, in my own work, often, I may have been with Dickinson, but she was not with me.

feb 12/RUN

5.5 miles
bottom of franklin hill
6 degrees
100% snow-covered

A fine mist of snow. A few patches of ice, some slight slips. Cold. Fresh air. Sun behind clouds. For the first mile I didn’t see anyone else on the trails. Then, a few runners and walkers. No bikers or skiers. Sometimes I felt strong, sometimes I felt sore, all the time I was happy to be out there by the gorge.

today’s small victories: wasn’t sure how far I’d run but made it to the bottom of the hill. Almost stopped to walk near the top for a minute, but didn’t, kept going until the bottom. Ran from the bottom to under franklin — 3/4 of the hill — instead of walking like I planned

10 Wintery Things

  1. patches of ice on sidewalk that wasn’t shoveled
  2. cold air on my face — not quite cold enough to give me a brain freeze or to freeze the snot in my nose
  3. small, soft flakes or freezing rain freezing on my eyelashes
  4. the sharp thrust, grinding noise combo of feet walking on snow
  5. the river: a mix of white ice and dark (purple?) open water
  6. white, heavy sky
  7. bird song: cheese burger cheese burger
  8. the bluff on the other side of the river: a mix of white with bare brown branches
  9. all of the walking trails were covered in a few inches of snow, some of it untouched, some marked by tracks — feet and skis
  10. leaned over the wall in the flats and listened — a soft, sharp tinkling of snow hitting the ice on the surface of the river

Discovered Lee Ann Roripaugh’s awesome collection #string of pearls yesterday through her poem, #meteorology on poems.com. I’m thinking of buying the collection. Here are a few bits of it — it’s all tankas — that I thought of during my winter run:

from #meteorology/ Lee Ann Roripaugh

yesterday’s snow sleeps :: late this morning in quiet :: white sheets / while rickety
trees comb out fog’s heavy shanks :: of tangled, unruly hair

*

as gusted leaves buzz :: and whorl over snow-sugared :: roofs / but oh! this blown
fluttering’s not a swirling :: of leaves, but winter sparrows

~

ugh! snotted hoody :: pinkened tinge faint litmus stain :: (yes or no / minus
or plus) watercoloring :: blown-through tissues / torn storm blooms

*

wet-dark tree beaded :: in pearled bits of wintry mix :: excited finch swoops
in manic parabolas :: to sip from the leaky eaves’

icicle /

the purple hour

2:40 am — dining room

too restless to notice or think about anything . . . purple mauve lavender orchid magenta is this restlessness a light or dark purple? whatever it is, it’s thick

3:15 am — bedroom floor

shadows slats moon carpet
the slats are soft, barely visible
the shadow of the lamp, its long neck, and something else. the cup? tin of nuts? nope the arm of the sofa
the moon — so bright! how many more days of this moon? this clear sky?

*

  • grape jelly
  • eggplant, japanese
  • eggplant, italian
  • plum
  • pansy
  • Daphne’s dress (Scooby Doo)
  • Violet’s turning violet!
  • purple banana
  • hubba bubba (grape)
  • grape juice
  • raisins
  • easter dress
  • FWA’s favorite color
  • purple toe
  • vikings
  • Barney
  • Dino (Flintstones)
  • Professor Plum

feb 10/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
7 degrees
75% snow-covered

Sun, not much wind, cold. Wore by yaktrax today. Even though there were big stretches of bare pavement I still think it was a good idea; lots of icy patches. At least once, I felt the yaktrax help me stay upright. Encountered walkers, runners, one bike, dogs. One dog was with a runner and tried to lunge at me. Luckily the runner had a tight hold on their leash.

10 Things

  1. sharp street lamp shadows
  2. strong smell of tobacco from a passing car
  3. tinted snow — usually I’d say it was a bit blue, but I thought purple today
  4. kids laughing and yelling on the playground
  5. tracks through the snow at the park, skipping the sidewalk and taking a shortcut
  6. tracks on the walking path — skis and human feet
  7. minnehaha creek at the falls was slow, thick, frozen, only one dark and open spot
  8. couldn’t see the falls falling, but heard their quiet dripping muffled behind the thick columns of ice
  9. empty benches
  10. empty falls — I don’t think I saw a single person by the falls today

About halfway to the falls, while thinking about purple I suddenly remembered mimeograph machines and the purple ink on the handouts we get copies of in elementary school. Later, on a walk break, I tried to think of as many purple things as I could. I had a list of at least a dozen, but all I can remember is purple Kool-aid. At the end of my run I thought about the Vikings and how purple is strongly associated with Minneapolis because of them and Prince. Prince made me think of a local radio station, the Current, and how they pull the “purple lever” for the first snow of winter: purple lever = a marathon of Prince music.

the purple hour

12:46 am — dining room
to leave a mark, to be marked, bruised, purpled

silence, then a hollow knock, but not silence, buzzing or ringing in my ear, like static
cold air (hear turned down at night)

periwinkle, heather, thistle, lilac, lavender, mauve, grape

purple purple purple purple violet violent violence silence silvery lilac plum plumb — the depths — plump — soft plums of cloud — plume of purpleish smoke

three white lights illuminating the outlet — not night lights plugged into the outlet, but lights embedded in the outlet — they are white and bright at the top, then fading out at the bottom, giving off gray light that reads as pale purple to me — got up to look closely at the lights and realized I was never looking directly at the light, the white and purplish gray shadow were all reflections on the wall, the lightbulbs were at the bottom of the outlet — what is the real light? where it originates, or where it casts?

3:00 am (remembered later) — bedroom
closed blinds, bright moon beaming through in the form of a strange double circle on my hand in light and dark purple

a thin line of light near the closet door

*

My description of the moon light made me think, purple moon, so I looked it up. A video game developer, a type of cheese, a modern furniture company, the name of a dispensary in Oklahoma, a variety of gourmet kale, the cycle when you start your period during a waning moon, the second full moon in April, a Chardonnay, a preschool, an arrangement of flowers with “lavender roses, purple carnations, and cheerful daisies”, a band, a branding company, a color evoking mystery.

Left my desk briefly to tell Scott about the purple moon and he asked, Have you mentioned “The Purple Rose of Cairo” yet? Wow, no! I haven’t seen that movie in almost 30 years. I think it was my favorite in my early 20s — this was before I knew what a creep Woody Allen was. Anyway, I want to watch it today.

This note, “to leave a mark, to be marked, bruised, purpled,” makes me think of two things:

1

This is the light of autumn, not the light of spring.
The light of autumn: you will not be spared.

You will not be spared, now will what you love be spared.
(from October/ Louise Glück)

2

According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.

Kafka on Prometheus

Not becoming one with the gorge, but striving to press deeper and deeper into it, to leave a trace/mark on it, and be marked by it (from log entry on 29 dec 2024).

Another purple thing I just remembered: on a weather map, purple represents very cold temperatures.

a screenshot from local weather forecast for this week